"There were five of us. Names do not matter. They were my fellow
workmen. We had been entrusted with the output of the Rosario for
the year and had promised to guard it with our lives. We heard
the soldiers of Maximilian coming. We were not enough to
withstand them. We determined to hide the treasure in the western
shaft. We carried it to the edge and threw it in. My four
companions went down to cover it over with dirt, which I brought
from the other shaft and gave them, shovel by shovel. A mad idea
seized me. If they were dead, no one but I would know the hiding
place of the treasure. I would kill them; but how? I glanced
about. Great pieces of rock were on every hand. Without stopping
to consider the foulness of the deed I rolled a huge piece to the
mouth of the shaft and pushed it in. There was a cry of terror
and I heard a voice call out to know what had happened. I said a
piece of rock had broken loose and asked what damage it had done.
Only one replied. The others had been stricken down. Madly I
pushed over another rock and then another and still another. Then
there was silence and I fled. The soldiers found me unconscious
at the bottom of the shaft. Ere I became conscious, Maximilian
was no more.
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